Last January, I became moderately obsessed with North Korea, thanks to this book, this graphic novel, and these photos. North Korea is both terrible and completely bizarre—in this day of hyper-connectedness, it’s hard to wrap my head around the idea that a country actually exists where millions of people have no light, not to mention no internet, phones, or non-programmed radios and TVs.

Illustrating North Korea’s strangeness is its official website, which is down today, the day that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il has also ceased to exist. Though it’s North Korea’s official website, it’s a very simple page with early-90s cyberspace graphics. It links to a CafePress shop, which is still up and where you can buy such items as an official North Korea baseball tee:
Strange.

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The Kim Jongs are apparently hoops fans, not baseball fans (well, that and golf, but I guess when you're shooting 4 or 5 aces every time out, golf looses some of its challenge) -- but I tend to agree that the DPRK is horrifically fascinating in a sort of "I can't believe this is real and not the backdrop for a bad Dolph Lundgren movie" way.

The scariest thing I learned over the past few days reading up on the situation? Most foreign state departments and intelligence agencies think that Kim Jong Il was actually the moderate compared to his military braintrust -- pointing to the fact that when Il has occasionally disappeared from public sight due to health reasons, it tends to be when the country gets most belligerent and uncooperative in foreign affairs.

Still - with the recent glimpses into the cults of personalities around Saddam Hussein and Moamar Qaddafi - you have to say that they've got nothing on the Kim Jongs...

I was listening to the BBC today, which interviewed a man in China, near the North Korean border, whose occupation was taking Chinese on day trips into a nearby North Korean city. He was saying that to Chinese, visiting North Korea was like going back in time 40 years, witnessing the same sort of cult of personality China used to give Mao Tse-Tung (yeah, I know that's the old spelling). And in the '60s, I can recall China's propaganda machine ascribing superhuman athletic feats to Mao, such as a swimming world record on the Yangtze River. The Kims learned well from their despotic brethren; apparently film buffs Kim Jong Il and Joseph Goebbels both dreamed of being David O. Selznick.

So, who knows? Perhaps in 2051, the North will have ditched this all for a grow-grow-grow economy. Of course, by then, I'll be 96 and not really caring.

From what I can tell, North Korea is basically the world's largest cult compound. Kim Il-sung basically set himself and his son up as gods, forming a cult of personality that sublimates the individual to the state in every aspect of life, and blames the United States for even the smallest inconveniences. The place just boggles my mind, to be honest - I have no idea where the line is between the Kims being insane and diabolical.

I was listening to the BBC today, which interviewed a man in China, near the North Korean border, whose occupation was taking Chinese on day trips into a nearby North Korean city. He was saying that to Chinese, visiting North Korea was like going back in time 40 years, witnessing the same sort of cult of personality China used to give Mao Tse-Tung (yeah, I know that's the old spelling). And in the '60s, I can recall China's propaganda machine ascribing superhuman athletic feats to Mao, such as a swimming world record on the Yangtze River.

There's a great book whose exact title escapes me, but it's something like "The Feats of Chairman Mao", a late 1960's compilation of scores of those fanciful escapades of Mao's, as reported with a straight face in the Chinese press. It has all the stuff about marathon swimming, soldiers inspired by his words who killed a thousand enemy soldiers with one rifle, and so on, and taken together it provides some real insight into what the poor Chinese had to live through every day. And then if after finishing that, you read the seminal Red-Color News Soldier, a book based on a bloodcurdling collection of photos (with accompanying text) smuggled outside of China during the Cultural Revolution, you'll have received a near-complete immersion course in the everyday reality behind the curtain of one of the all-time prison states.

We have limited openings now, but I can offer you an internship position in our Auto-da-fé Compliance Division.

What's my white smock and pointy hat budget? You have to pay through the nose for a good smock these days. I suppose we could substitute those Cafe Press baseball shirts but I think they carry about as much gravitas as the Marlins' new sculpture.

So what do you think guys..yesterday I shot a 13 at Pebble Beach, flew across the country to New York in a laser-powered jet of my own design where I made orgasmic love to 8 supermodels at once with my giant, multi-pronged penis. I'm in the running, right?

You got my vote Shooty. I look forward to the Tottenham-North Korea friendly.

North Korea, the current World Champions, look forward to defeating the puny English capitalists by no fewer than 40 goals. Only the munificence of the North Korean people wills save them form a more humiliating defeat. Then we shall feast with a variety of cabbage and fish dishes.

I made orgasmic love to 8 supermodels at once with my giant, multi-pronged penis. I'm in the running, right?

Well, within the meaning of the act, just barely, but don't get your hopes up because the guy with the spatula, grater, loudener, and sundry Ronco attachments is leading the pack by a parasang at least.

North Korea, the current World Champions, look forward to defeating the puny English capitalists by no fewer than 40 goals. Only the munificence of the North Korean people wills save them form a more humiliating defeat. Then we shall feast with a variety of cabbage and fish dishes.

Y'know, we've lost probably the top two flamboyant dictators of the last quarter-century within a span of a couple months. Who can really take Qaddafi and KJI's place? Hugo Chavez is nowhere near as crazy as they are, no matter how hard he tries. Ahmadinejad says some crazy ####, but he's not even where the buck stops in Iran and doesn't have the ridiculous cult of personality stories of mind boggling building projects. Guys like Nazarbayev and Than Shwe have built insane Pharoah level projects in their impoverished countries as new capitals (Astana and Naypyidaw respectively), but don't go out of their way to make Bond Villain style pronouncements. Robert Mugabe is destructive enough but not flamboyant enough.

Seriously, who's the new Bond Villain of Real Life? I think I might have to go with Putin. He's got the ridiculous photo ops, he's ex-KGB, he's turned his nation into an autocratic state and uses their resources to #### over anyone who looks at him sideways.

Nah, that was Saparmurat Niyazov, AKA Turkmenbashi, LEADER OF ALL TURKMEN!

Turkmenbashi was a pretty awesome living deity, all you had to do was read his book 3 times and you were guaranteed to get into heaven!

I think we're passing out of a golden age. Kim Jong-Il, Turkmenbashi, and Muammar Qaddafi were all no doubt Hall of Fame wacky dictators. And their near contemporaries, like Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga, were HoF too.

I will be in Korea in a few weeks but because of the tragic death of the WORLD'S GREATEST LEADER I will not visit the North. Instead I will be going to the second greatest freedom loving democracy in the world-Myanmar. (I really am going to Burma, just the airport in Korea.)

Most foreign state departments and intelligence agencies think that Kim Jong Il was actually the moderate compared to his military braintrust -- pointing to the fact that when Il has occasionally disappeared from public sight due to health reasons, it tends to be when the country gets most belligerent and uncooperative in foreign affairs.

What is funny is that diplomats thought the same thing about Hitler and Stalin. You would think they would see that playing the moderate is an obviously useful facade for a dictator.

Is this some sort of bizarre court-ordered community service? Or do you work for the CIA?

No, I am going to Burma willingly (if I get a visa), I went to Cambodia recently and loved it. Actually when I worked in Paris my European coworkers told me that they knew I was in the CIA because I was nothing like the cruel American overlords who ran the company. My trip to Malawi convinced them I was a spy, but maybe not CIA.

No, I am going to Burma willingly (if I get a visa), I went to Cambodia recently and loved it. Actually when I worked in Paris my European coworkers told me that they knew I was in the CIA because I was nothing like the cruel American overlords who ran the company. My trip to Malawi convinced them I was a spy, but maybe not CIA.

Jeeze. The only way I'd go to Burma is if they draft my ass.

But then again, I'mm squeamish that way. I only go to countries where the US ambassador can easily secure my release from the forced labor camps ;-)

No, I am going to Burma willingly (if I get a visa), I went to Cambodia recently and loved it. Actually when I worked in Paris my European coworkers told me that they knew I was in the CIA because I was nothing like the cruel American overlords who ran the company. My trip to Malawi convinced them I was a spy, but maybe not CIA.

You're going to all the places I want to go to! I almost went to Malawi last year but my cat go sick. I'm debating where to go this year--Africa (Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia or Zimbabwe) or Thailand, up north near the Myanmar border.

You're going to all the places I want to go to! I almost went to Malawi last year but my cat go sick. I'm debating where to go this year--Africa (Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia or Zimbabwe) or Thailand, up north near the Myanmar border.

The travel company I have been using (Canadian of course) has this trip: ZANZIBAR TO JOBURG OVERLAND, which I would be considering if I thought my knees would still let me get in and out of a tent for a couple of weeks. The trip I’m doing in January includes a few days in Thailand near Burma, but that area should be a trip in itself.

That would be fantastic. Sadly, I never have the time or the cash for trips that extensive. 2 weeks is as long as I can get away for. Namibia looks intriguing, too. Evidently you can just rent a Land Rover there and camp on the side of the road at night. It's a relatively wealthy country, too, so the roads are decent. It's very, very desert-y, though.

I wouldn't lump Nazarbayev in with the dictators of Burma or even with Turkmenbashi or Islam Karimov. The new Kazakh capital is basically funded by oil money and the people there don't exactly live in fear, despite pervasive political corruption and the lack of a free press. Religious freedom is very strong there, unless you're a Hare Krishna or are prosyletizing aggressively. The leaders of Dubai and Abu Dhabi are worse.

39 - I kind of doubt it. Germany reunified awfully quick, and while they didn't have anything like the Kim dynasty, the world moves a lot quicker today. I suspect that once the people get a little taste of the ROK's prosperity - and once the border opens a bit and long-separated families start getting reunited, it won't take long - it's going to be something that's hard to stop.

Plus, once the regime collapses, it's probably the safest thing for everybody. Japan, China, South Korea and other local powers are not going to want an unstable country that potentially has nuclear weapons just a few miles away. There's going to be a lot of motivation for them to do something to create stability, and a unified Korea is probably the best assurance of that.

(Admittedly, way too much of my impression of the area comes from movies, particularly stuff like Park Chan-wook's Joint Security Area.)

It's gonna take at least a generation after the regime collapses to even think about moving the wheels towards reunification, right?

A collapsing North Korea would be a client state of South Korea from day 1, it's only they who would pump in the billions needed to rebuild the country. And they would have to do it, the alternative is a huge migration south (part of which is unavoidable of course).

It's gonna take at least a generation after the regime collapses to even think about moving the wheels towards reunification, right?

A collapsing North Korea would be a client state of South Korea from day 1, it's only they who would pump in the billions needed to rebuild the country. And they would have to do it, the alternative is a huge migration south (part of which is unavoidable of course).

Interestingly enough - the German unification/reunification was less smooth than top line reports would have you believe... It was enormously expensive for the former 'West Germany' -- and ask an older German from the west about his feelings about his countrymen from the east. On the flip side, many in the east still feel like they're looked upon as second class, as least superficially, by the elitist westerners.

Don't get me wrong - at a macro level, enormously successful, but culturally and economically --- there's still a divide. I would have to think that Korea would be geometrically, if not exponentially worse.

Do you CIA guys have a convention or what? "Come to sunny Myanmar for our seminar on Underhand methods. Enjoy the beaches and join us dabbling with regime change in your free time."

Interestingly enough - the German unification/reunification was less smooth than top line reports would have you believe...

I don't see how anyone could have expected it to go better than it has. Ofd course, they're Germans, so they will think anything short of perfection is a disaster.
¨Don't get me wrong - at a macro level, enormously successful, but culturally and economically --- there's still a divide. I would have to think that Korea would be geometrically, if not exponentially worse.

Yes, which is a reason for keeping them separate. But still it is impossible to seal off a free North Korea. Things will have to get better fast.

On the other hand, the North Koreans might to start with be more satisfied with simple things like clean water and plenty of food, as opposed to the East Germans who had seen the West on TV for years and wanted it all directly.

Yes, which is a reason for keeping them separate. But still it is impossible to seal off a free North Korea. Things will have to get better fast.

On the other hand, the North Koreans might to start with be more satisfied with simple things like clean water and plenty of food, as opposed to the East Germans who had seen the West on TV for years and wanted it all directly.

Yeah, I was thinking on the much larger economic and cultural differences between the DPRK and the RoK, compared to the GDR and FRG. At the very least, the East Germans were well fed and had greater contact with the West.